The present invention generally relates to an intra-/inter-program data name (identifier) standardization support system for an information processing equipment and more particularly to the intra-/interprogram data name standardization system suited profitably for enhancing efficiency of maintenance activity and productivity of software including one or plural programs for performing data processing with a plurality of files.
Processing or replacement of data flow in the information processing apparatus is described in R. M. Curtice, "Data Dictionaries: An Assessment of Current Practice and Problems", 7th International Conference of VLDB Proc., pp. 564-570 (1981); F. E. Allen, and J. Cocke, "A Program Data Flow Analysis Procedure", C. ACM, Vol. 19, No. 3 (March 1976), pp. 137-147; K. Bannai, M. Suzuki, and T. Terano, "A Total Approach to a Solution for the Maintenance Problems through Configuration Management - Maintenance Support Facility MSF -", Compsac 83 Proc. (Nov. 1983), pp. 404-411; and J. Weldon, "Data Base Administration", Plenum Press, (1981), pp. 179-181.
Software, in particular the software destined for business data processing is generally constituted by a number of program for performing data sending/reception or data transfer with files. Consequently, in the program maintenance activity, it is important to appreciate the contents or meanings of data items in order to comprehend the programs.
Further, when the attributes of a data item such as the digit number (data length) and the data types (such as data representation by numerals or by characters, the number of bits used for representing one digit or figure, representation by punctuated numeral and so forth) are to be changed for some reason associated with the maintenance activity, it is necessary to alter or modify correspondingly a plurality of programs which use the data items having the same content as the first mentioned data item. Further, it is equally important to make clear completely what data item is used by what program. In this conjunction, it will readily be appreciated that operator in charge of maintenance of the programs encounters difficulty in finding out the data items of the same content when the intra-file data items (i.e. data items in a file) are assigned with different names or identifiers from one to another program. Even when such a tool is available which can present information concerning the correspondence relations between a plurality of programs and data names, it is still difficult to ascertain which of data items is used by which of programs.
To solve the problems mentioned above, a method or system has been proposed in which a standardized data name is prepared for a data item in a given one of files, wherein the names of data in different programs which correspond to the data item of the given file are replaced and unified by the standardized data name. In that case, in order to ascertain that the data items having names differing from one to another programs are identical with one another, it is necessary to check manually for each of the data items whether the data item used by different programs with different names occupies a same location in a same file and/or whether the data items used by the different programs have the same contents or meanings.
As will be seen, the prior art data name standardization (or unification) system mentioned above can certainly unify the names of a data item in one file used in common by a plurality of programs by replacing with a standardized name. However, no consideration is paid to such situation in which the name of the data item having the same content differs from one to another file. Consequently, when data items having the same content are present in a plurality of files and when the names of these data items of the same content are to be unified by a standardized name throughout the plural files with the aid of the prior art procedure mentioned above, it is then required to decide the identity of the data items of concern one by one for all the files through intervention of operator, which is however very difficult in practice. In other words, when data items of same content exist in a plurality of files, it has heretofore been impossible to make decision as to the identity of these data items and to unify the names thereof with a standardized name for the programs which use these data items. This in turn means that when data items having inherently the same content are present in a plurality of files, it is difficult to appreciate through the programs the fact that these data items have the same content. It is further noted that when data items of same content are present in a plurality of files and when the attributes such as digit number and data type (numerical data, character data or plus or minus numerical data) of a data item existing in one file are to be altered or modified, it is necessary to modify correspondingly the attributes of the data items of the same content in other files. However, it has been impossible to pick up all the data items whose attributes are to be altered even when the tool capable of providing information about the correspondence relations between the data names and the programs is available, unless the data items of concern are used by the programs under the identical data name.